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Kaede Akamatsu (Harmonic Souls)
Kaede Akamatsu is a character featured in Harmonic Souls: An Alternate Continuity, second entry in the Ultimate Virus AU series by PetildaFan. She also appears in A Careful Eye Saved My Life. Kaede is based on the character of the same name from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. As opposed to canon, she survives past the first trial and is the main protagonist. Kaede has the title of Ultimate Pianist, owing to her prowess in playing the piano since childhood and winning various awards. Later on, due to her position as leader during the killing game, along with her optimism and her cheerful persona despite all the despair, she is titled Ultimate Love by Maki Harukawa. History Early Life Kaede Akamatsu lived with her parents in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido. Her mother was a professional cello player and her father was a junior high music teacher. She enjoyed classical music thanks to them. When her parents found her playing a toy piano, they showered her with praise, enthusiastic that their daughter is a "musical prodigy". A few years later, they hired private tutors in order to let her study and play the piano. Her lessons led her to play different songs flawlessly, winning various contests thus letting her be recognized as the Ultimate Pianist. During one of her performances, she was visited by Makoto Naegi, the Ultimate Hope and Headmaster of the reformed Hope's Peak Academy. He wanted her to attend the school and gave her an application to fill out once she would have came back at home. Kaede accepted right away, deciding to take the opportunity. After submitting the application, she visited the school for a psychological exam, in which she remarked how she wanted to use her talent to "help people smile again". Once the exam was finished, the teachers looked pleased with the results and said that they would get back to her once they finish examining the other Ultimates who applied. About a month later, she received an acceptance letter from the school. Her parents were so proud that had shared the good news with everyone in the family. It was a little embarrassing for Kaede but she knew that she made this far thanks to her parents' support and she was grateful for that. Kaede attended Shining Star International High School and right before the start of the next school year, news reports about the disappearance of 16 Ultimates from all over the country started to appear. It sparked a huge outcry, with Future Foundation warning all Ultimates to hide their talent from the world until the responsible for the disappearances is found. Meanwhile, Hope's Peak decided to shut down until the Ultimates were gonna be found. Kaede was sad that she couldn't play the piano but she knew that it was for her own safety. One morning, while walking to school, she was forcefully shoved into a car. She tried to fight back but the men were too strong, even the neighbors tried to rescue her but during the fight, she felt a stabbing feeling in her neck and lost consciousness. When she woke up, she was trapped in a pod with a helmet on her head. There were also other thirteen teens in similar pods. Suddenly, a man carrying a capped teen in a blazer uniform showed up and revealed that he was the "last one". Kaede peeked out her pod and recognized a man in a wheelchair with five little Monokumas, it was Professor Isas Idabashi. Idabashi started to talk, revealing himself as the Ultimate Neuroscientist and then about the reason why they were all abducted, the Project: Danganronpa. He then talked about the helmets on their heads, the Blackout Helmets but stopped and chuckled, coldly admitting that none of the them is going to remember that moment. After one of the boys swearing to ruin to plan, Idabashi angrily asked Monodam to let "Subjects 52a and 52b" to receive an "extra-special treatment". Monodam, however, hesitated and Monophanie decided to obey instead, starting the First Memory Reprogram. First Memory Reprogram NOTE: These events are shown in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. ------ Without memory of what happened earlier, Kaede later woke up in a locker within an eerie classroom, overgrown with vegetation, on the second floor of the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles. Upon stumbling out of the locker and bumping her head, she collected herself and tried to figure where she was and what was going on. Before she could do too much however, a boy stumbled out of the locker next to the one she woke up in. The two got acquainted with each other, with the boy introducing himself as Shuichi Saihara, before they headed out into the hallway. However, as soon as they left the classroom they were found by a large mechanical monstrosity known as an Exisal, which chased them until they both got to the first floor, only to run into more of the robots. The pair continued to evade the large mechanical monstrosities, not realizing that they were being led towards the gymnasium, where fourteen other high schoolers had already gathered. Not long after, all five Exisals appear once again and threaten the participants. However, after the ones controlling them realized that they weren't supposed to be using them just yet and that they had gone off-script, the five mysterious individuals exited the Exisals and introduced themselves as the Monokuma Kubs. The Kubs give the sixteen participants a new set of clothes before giving them their "first memory" via the Flashback Light. Kaede and the other fifteen students underwent the fabrication process, where all of their past memories and personalities were heavily fabricated. After the process was completed, Kaede and the others entered the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles as totally different people, officially commencing the Killing Game known as the Killing School Semester. Killing School Semester Introduction Kaede once again woke up in the same locker as before, along with Shuichi. The two had no recollection of their previous meeting and as such, they reintroduced themselves. The pair explored the seemingly abandoned school, finding and introducing themselves to all fourteen other students before being told by the Monokuma Kubs to assemble at the gymnasium. Kaede and Shuichi, along with everyone else, headed there immediately and were introduced to the Monokuma Kubs properly, along with their father, the self-appointed headmaster of the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles, Monokuma. Monokuma announces that all sixteen Ultimate students would participate in a Killing Game, much to a majority of the students shock, horror, or displeasure. Kaede was exceptionally outraged by this announcement, declaring to Monokuma and his cubs that they would never participate in a Killing Game. Her bold declaration fell on deaf ears, as the robotic bears continued to laugh at and taunt the participants. With that, the Killing School Semester had officially begun. Attempting the Death Road of Despair After Monokuma commenced the Killing Game, Kaede read the Killing Game rules on her Monopad. The disturbing rules baffled all of the students, causing a discord among the group. Kaede who saw this immediately stopped them, saying that they should cooperate together instead of fighting if they wanted to escape. As Kaede proposed a sound and straightforward argument, everyone's heart was able to become one, all thanks to her speech. Gonta Gokuhara, the Ultimate Entomologist, then remembered that he found a manhole inside the boiler room behind the school building. Kaede along with her friends immediately followed the Ultimate Entomologist's lead, with a hope of finding a way out. Descending the manhole, Kaede and the others found a tunnel leading outside of the academy. Though everyone thought that the tunnel probably ended up being a trap, they still had to test every single possibility in order to escape. However, Kaede and the others exhausted themselves both physically and mentally as they found that escaping through Death Road of Despair is next to impossible. Due to this, Kokichi revolted, saying that Kaede's repeated motivational speech is the source of the group's agony, added by some of her friends giving up on escaping the tunnel, the group's harmony came to a swift end. The tunnel ended up being a trap set by Monokuma and the Monokuma Kubs, much to everyone's dismay. Kaede, who blamed herself for making everyone break up, was comforted by Kaito Momota, the Ultimate Astronaut, and Shuichi, both of which still completely supported her ideals. As the nighttime announcement broadcasted, everyone including Kaede returned to their dorm room. When Kaede returned to her room, she found a key which was supposedly for her dorm. Monokid gave the key to Kaede to give her access to her room while also giving her a "hint", which was that if she stole someone else's key she will get the chance to kill someone. Kaede got increasingly irritated and scared Monokid to make him flee. The First Motive and the Hidden Door The next day, Kaede went to the dining hall after everyone else did and was greeted by Kokichi who in turn for his rebellion towards the group's harmony, created a "kind" lie that made the group consolidate again. Afterwards, Monokuma came to the cafeteria and announced the first motive, anyone who committed the first killing will graduate without holding a trial, effectively calling it a "First Blood Perk". Kaede still boldly declared that they wouldn't lose to Monokuma and that they had promised each other to escape together. Rantaro Amami, the Ultimate ???, pointed out that this was used to invalidate the cooperative game by Kaede and make it into a noncooperative game where the players don't work. Kaito meanwhile, became increasingly outraged with Monokuma for doing whatever he wanted and lunged at him. This caused the Monokuma Kubs to show up, showing no hesitation to punish the Ultimate Astronaut with the Exisals for attempting violence against their father, effectively breaking the rules. The red Exisal charged at him but accidentally ended up crushing Monokuma instead, supposedly destroying him. The Monokubs were incredibly saddened by the sudden demise of their father, stating that he had no spare and that he was one of a kind. Upon learning this, the participant's mood improved greatly, thinking the Killing Game to be over. Kaede however, was still skeptical, but this skepticism was met with accusation of her wanting to continue the Killing Game from some of the participants, much to Kaede's dismay. Kaede returned to her room and began to cry silently. A moment after that, Shuichi came to her room, telling that her beliefs are not wrong at all. In fact, Kaede was the only person Shuichi trusted enough to share his secret with. Once Kaede visited the library with the Ultimate Detective, he pushed one of the bookshelves aside to reveal a hidden door, much to her surprise. Due to the nature of the hidden door, Shuichi speculated that someone among the group was actually working with Monokuma, much to Kaede's shock and disbelief. Shuichi was just as stunned as she was and decided to test his own theory by sprinkling some dust within the card reader slot of the hidden door to see if someone was really going in and out of that door without anyone noticing. Kaede and Shuichi leave the library after putting the bookshelf back into place and head back to their respective dorm rooms. The Additional Motive Kaede once again joined everyone else in the dining hall the next morning, only to find that Monokuma had, in fact, returned, much to the dismay of the students, but to the joy of the Monokuma Kubs. Monokuma goes on to reveal the additional motive, that if a murder did not occur within two days by noon, everyone who was forced to participate would be killed. Despite Kaede's best efforts to try and keep everyone together, a majority of the group seemed too depressed to stay united and left the dining hall. Shuichi once again took Kaede to the library and revealed the hidden door to her. Both discovered that the dust that had been planted in the card reader dust by Shuichi had fallen onto the ground, indicating that someone had used the card reader to enter through the hidden door. With this information confirmed, Shuichi hypothesized he stated that with the way Monokuma worded the additional motive that he was trying to protect someone and that the hidden door may be connected to Monokuma's revival. He then went on to state that if someone was being protected by Monokuma, and had the ability to create a spare of him, that they were the mastermind of the Killing Game. Kaede was horrified to think that the one responsible for all their suffering was one of them but thought to herself that there's no way she could forgive such a person. Shuichi extrapolated that the mastermind might come to the hidden room if they needed to create a huge amount of Monokuma's. Kaede made up her mind and decided to believe in Shuichi's detective work and take the risk with him despite being warned by him that it's just his deduction and that he could very well be wrong. After reapplying the dust to the card reader slot, they both left the library once again and returned to their rooms. In a bonus scene during Chapter 1, Kaede would meet up with Tsumugi Shirogane, the Ultimate Cosplayer, in the game room and asked her to paint her nails in return for giving Tsumugi a nail brush earlier. Kaede was happy with Tsumugi's work, but then Rantaro walked in and claimed that he could do nail art as well, which he proved by then painting Kaede's nails, much to her embarrassment and Tsumugi's jealousy. Kaede's Plan Kaede woke up the next morning to someone ringing her room's doorbell. She answered it, expecting it to be Shuichi, only for it to be Monokuma telling her that her Research Lab had opened up. Annoyed, she slammed the door in his face, only for the bell to ring again. She told the one ringing the bell to go away, expecting it to be Monokuma only for it to actually be Shuichi this time, to whom she apologized immediately for her behavior. Shuichi had come to her with a plan in order to catch the mastermind, finding it safer to catch them from a distance instead of hiding out in the library. Hoping to catch the mastermind, Kaede and Shuichi begged Miu Iruma, the Ultimate Inventor, to make them cameras to set up in the library. They retrieved parts for Miu to make the cameras from the warehouse. While there, Kaede began to worry. She pondered whether or not this plan would really be able to save everyone. With this worry on her mind, she put the disposable cameras, along with a shot put ball, in her backpack. Pushed by the motive presented by Monokuma, Kaede planned to murder the mastermind and save everyone from the Killing Game without telling Shuichi. Category:Female Characters Category:"Harmonic Souls: An Alternate Continuity" Characters Category:"A Careful Eye Saved My Life" Characters Category:Ultimate Virus AU Category:Story: Harmonic Souls: An Alternate Continuity Category:Story: A Careful Eye Saved My Life Category:Protagonists Category:Survivors